1. Field of the Invention
My invention relates to methods and apparatus for the automatic classification of patterns, and more particularly to methods and apparatus of the class including those disclosed in my co-pending U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 907,836, filed May 19, 1978, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. It will be understood by those having ordinary skill in the art, informed by the teachings of these two patent applications, that certain ones of the cryptographic teachings of my said co-pending application may be incorporated into systems embodying my present invention by those having ordinary skill in the art without the exercise of invention.
The expression "automatic classification of indicia" as used herein denotes but is not limited to optical character recognition (OCR) and automatic signature verification.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many methods and apparatus for the automatic classification of patterns are found in the prior art.
Holographic methods and apparatus for the classification of patterns are shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,620,590; 3,643,216; and 4,053,228. See also, "Holographic Filing: An Industry on the Verge of Birth", by Thomas H. Maugh II, Science, Vol. 201, Aug. 4, 1978, pages 431 and 432.
It is suggested at pages 177 through 184 of Introcuduction to Fourier Optics, by Joseph W. Goodman, McGraw-Hill, 1968, that optical data processing methods and apparatus may be applied to character recognition.
Most of these prior art methods and apparatus have, however, been characterized by complexity and high cost, and have involved many steps of human judgement and selection in their design.